The Onslow County Board of Education is putting a $75 million bond request on the upcoming ballot.

There is about $86 million that remains outstanding on the last bond. In my conversation with an administrative staff member at one of the informational meetings that the citizens have demanded from the school board, they admitted that they were going to request another bond in just two years.

It has also been shown to the board that placing Common Core in the schools will cost over $5 million in the first year. With the proposed 2013Ė2014 school budget taking up over 31 percent of the funds for the entire Onslow County budget, I have to ask: Just how much does the Board of Education want?

I have not had a raise in four years. How am I supposed to pay these additional taxes? Yes, I want children to be well educated, but can we afford to pay what the school board demands? Maybe they need to cut back on some things. Maybe they need to rethink what they are teaching and see what is just for fun (electives) and what is truly needed. Is the administrative staff to big? I donít know and no, I donít want the teachers having to buy the supplies for their class from their own paycheck. Maybe, in a few years when everyone in Onslow County has a million-dollar yearly income we can afford the taxes that will be needed to pay for everything the Board of Education and school administration want.

One thing we could do to deal with the increasing cost is take a million dollars or so and buy every student a computer to use at their homes. The instructors could operate from a central location and teach all the students by Internet at their home. Australia and other countries do this with shortwave radios. The system can keep track of how long the student is online and what time they logged into each class. They can require mandatory hours of study and do all the testing on line, like they want to do with Common Core anyway.

That way we can sell all the current school buildings and put some funds into the school system saving the taxpayer money. The teachers will be at one location, can answer all questions over the Internet and cut way back on their work loads.